Functional Skills for Schools

Functional skills are part of the key stage 3 curriculum and revised programmes of study for key stage 4. They cover part of what is already being taught in English, maths and ICT. Functional skills are about the ability to select the right English, maths or ICT skills to solve different problems. Being functional is about relating the curriculum to how it can be used in everyday life – for example, in maths, understanding a wage slip and being able to plan a journey using public transport.

So, the good news is that you are almost certainly already doing Functional Skills!

By looking at what you're teaching and making small tweaks you can make a really rich Functional Skills resource, as well as covering other areas of the curriculum. Functional Skills makes what you're teaching more exciting and relevant to students. It's about more than just preparation for passing exams. Functional Skills is about teaching and reinforcing skills that can be used everyday. English, Maths and ICT are embedded in the learning activities.

It is a big ask to try and encourage all teachers to take Functional Skills wholeheartedly on board. It may be unrealistic, but to help people get on board here are some of our ideas as a starting point:

• Citizenship

  Here the ‘real-life’ aspect of Functional Skills really can come to life – especially for English. You could use a topical local issue as a context. In Shrewsbury at the moment there is a local environmental campaign against the building of a large incinerator plant on the outskirts of town. You could use any local context and:

  • Discuss the issue (speaking and listening)
  • Find out all relevant viewpoints (reading/internet/book/newspaper research)
  • Consider solutions and any alternatives (discussion/problem solving)
  • Write a report or summary of the issue
  • Write a letter of concern or support to your local MP

• Design and Technology

  Product design project: students work collaboratively in teams to come up with a design concept to be taken through to costing stage. This task could include all three Functional Skills.

• Geography

  Sustainable development investigations. Students could use sustainable development as a theme that could use all three Functional Skills. This topic covers a large proportion of the Geography Programme of Study at KS3. Use Geography related news topics as a theme – the Citizenship topic above could also be adapted for use in Geography, for example.

• History

  • Functional ICT – choose a suitable historical context for investigation via websites (census data, digitised artefacts and other records). Use the information discovered to write a short report on the topic.
  • Functional English – history is document rich and therefore a rich source of material for Functional English. Your students could investigate aspects of history and detect point of view/bias/inference in historical data. They could find suitable resources to write a report on a given topic.

• PE

  By its nature PE helps students develop as individuals and teams. You could use the context of a sports match to allocate different roles. Some students could be scorers/timekeepers. Others could be coaches and analysts – recording the number and type of passes, goals, fouls and so on. If you are able you could record a game and get students to provide match commentary (alternatively use a recording without sound). Students could write match reports or a sports newsletter.

• PSHE

  PSHE is a very rich source of possibilities for developing Functional Skills – the list could be endless. Here are just a few ideas to start:

  • Use the internet and other source materials to investigate the effects of specific drugs. Mephedrone would be a good example – they could find out its effects, its legal status and any specific stories about it in the press to write a report about it.
  • Similarly for alcohol, students could investigate drink driving and use functional maths skills to examine statistics to compile a report.
  • Find out about the types of bank accounts available for 16-year-olds and choose the best option for different people’s circumstances.
  • Choose a particular job and find out the qualifications, skills and aptitudes required for it. Investigate ways students could gain these skills or experience relevant to support an application

• Science

  Your students will use Functional English skills when they join in discussions and when they write up the results of investigations. They are likely to also use maths skills of reasoning and analysis to explain the outcome of investigations and could use ICT skills to present their findings. Watch out for some very specific suggestions for science coming soon.